Dustland Fairytale
by dollishdragxx
Summary: An examination of how Jax and Tara fell in love, starting when they were sixteen. NEW AND REVAMPED!
1. Chapter 1

_**AUTHORS NOTE:** _Hi guys! Okay, as you all know, _A Dustland Fairytale Beginning_ was my child - the very first Jax and Tara fanfiction I'd written, with the same concept. I wanted to revisit the idea, but I also wanted to take in suggestions/criticisms and ultimately make this version ten times better. So, basically, this is my original idea, revamped, new, and made so much better! I really hope you guys like it as much as you loved the first. It's rated T for now, but will probably switch to M later on!

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><p><span><em><strong>1994; Jax<strong>_

When I turned thirteen years old, the first automotive lesson I received involved the clutch of a Harley beneath my weak grip, accompanied by a thrilling sparkle in my untainted sapphire eyes. I looked to my father for praise and approval – of which I received, but this moment between us could not be entirely happy. No, there was an edge of _darkness _to it, something I didn't understand until I was old enough to feel it myself. It was in the way my father's forehead creased, and how the corners of his lips turned down as I revved the engine and relished momentarily on the forceful vibrations and how the metal felt between my thighs. It was in his eyes, liquid lapis lazuli, worn down and far away as he saw a self discovery path that I had yet to stumble down.

My father seized the moment – his eldest son sitting on his most prized possession – and he was proud, anxious, angry and enthused in one fell swoop.

It was an evil omen.

And the very moment I sat there, testing my limits, learning the feel of my father's bike, I felt something stirring in my brittle bones, in my Teller blooded veins. It was exhilarating to me, controlling something so powerful in which my feet could barely touch the ground on each end. And, more than anything else, I felt _this_ was what mattered; this moment birthing a generation, a boy into a man. _This_ was my preordained legacy, to sit on this bike. To someday, coat my chest in a leather Redwood Original, brandishing the same patch under my father's clavicle.

_ President. _

When I turned fifteen, I watched as they shoveled the remains of my father's bike into the bed of Piney's pickup truck, my father cold and lifeless in a body bag, somewhere in a morgue. They called him a fighter back then, which was something else I hadn't understood while standing beside his hospital bed. I looked down upon a meaty, bloody vegetable for two long, grueling days and I'd decided that stubborn felt like a better word for him, my father who was smeared like a pancake on the highway. I didn't cry until I was alone at his grave, beating my knuckles bloody on his cold, _forever _headstone. It took me five months to touch another bike, and seven to ride one. And when I rode one again, I didn't stop. I felt as if I cheated death every time my ride ended, and I was invincible because of it.

I'm invincible now, speeding mercilessly down the highway, a sweet sixteen misfit with a misshapen hole in my chest. Somewhere between deciding to wear my father's rings and prematurely dropping out of high school, I let my hair get shaggy enough to be described as _disgusting, grungy surfer_ and I have to push it out of my eyes to take in my surroundings. I park my bike at the summer carnival, right next to the same truck that once bore my father's bike's remains. A year ago now.

Opie is here, somewhere, stumbling around piss drunk with our intimate group of friends and waiting on me to arrive. The Charming Summer Carnival is the last bash before the season ends and school begins, though Opie, Juice, and I will not be among them. No, our plans are much larger – something crooked, yet hanging in consequence. I pluck a fresh cigarette in my mouth and kick the grass under my white, scuffed sneaker, before I skillfully hop the fence to avoid paying for a ticket like a model citizen. I have the cash, of course I do, but something about disobeying rules pumps adrenaline into my veins and makes me feel... well, like a badass.

The Charming Summer Carnival is swarming with bodies, mother's buying cotton candy's for squealing daughters, preteens tossing rings at bottles for stuffed prizes, and senior citizens lounging about the pie contests. I toss my extinguished bud into a puke smelled trash can before brandishing my flask, stealing a large swig of whiskey from the metal canister and then stowing it away again in my back jeans pocket. I'm not planning to get drunk, and it wouldn't be easy for me, anyway. I've been dipping into the Teller liquor cabinet for as long as I can remember, and my mother used to notice it more, before she took up marijuana and _thought_ she hid the key well enough. Her sock drawer wasn't exactly inventive, and I believe she just gave up the losing fight.

"Teller!" I hear Opie's booming voice pointed at my back, and I turn around to greet it. Opie is there by the ferris wheel, accompanied by Juice, Wendy Case, Donna Lerner, and some girl named Amber or Andrea or Ashley or something that doesn't stick because I don't care. "Get your ass over here!"

I grin wickedly, sauntering over to meet them while Juice hands ticket stubs to the carny. When I reach them, Opie familiarly hugs me like a bear, patting my back like an earthquake on my spine.

All three girls are wearing next to nothing, leaving no room for imagination and boring me endlessly – I've been with quite a few of them, actually, the white trash _femme fatales_ that I seem to perpetually attract. But I have belonged to none, and none have belonged to me, because I get this aching sensation that something is horribly amiss every second I try to connect with them. Though I fit into the mold of this life, there's something deeper in me – something none of them can understand. Mostly because I can't understand it myself.

"Jax, you're with Alana." Juice says, nudging me pointedly but all I can think is, s_o that's her damned name. _

"Is that okay?" Alana regards me with a seductive look about her smile, tossing her unnaturally blonde hair over one tattooed shoulder. It's a heart with an arrow through it, and it makes me smirk, because if she tries this tango with me? That's exactly what will happen to her.

I'm usually a gentleman with women, though. Gemma Teller would never let me get away with less than that. It isn't their fault that they always end up an uncanny prop in my whirlwind life.

"Sure, darlin'." I respond respectively, even allowing her to wrap an arm around my middle as if she's claimed me. She hasn't, but I can let her pretend.

I watch as Opie slides onto a ferris wheel seat with Donna, and I give them a knowing look as Op puts his arm around her frame. When Opie catches me staring, he lazily winks in my direction, and though it's all fun and games for now, I know there's something deeper in the way their eyes stick to one another and how Donna always seems to smooth out Opie's clothes and push his sandy hair out of his eyes. I don't try to understand it, because I'm not sure I can. _Love_ isn't a concept I'm familiar with – not even by the example of John and Gemma Teller, a cold distance thwarted between them toward the final dying breath of their relationship.

Juice slides in to the next car with Wendy, who looks high out of her fucking mind as she sways where she sits. Juice's eyes are brimmed red, and I'm positive he's had a taste of whatever it is, too. Drugs don't necessarily bother me, but I don't do them. There isn't enough space in my body for unmanageable emotions.

"Jax, we're next." Alana gets my attention, sliding into the third car before I follow suit. After we're secure, the rickety old ferris wheel spins into life, pushing our car upwards into the air. I feel the thrill in the pit of my stomach, always a junky for any shred of adrenaline. I love heights – a testament to all my years sitting on the top Teller-Morrow Automotives, no matter how many times my mother halfheartedly screamed at me to get down. There's a reckless abandon in me that I can't seem to stifle, and as I age, it tugs at me harder. Pushing me towards...

I feel it grow each time I sit at my father's grave, just a few paces from where my brother also eternally rests. Thomas. A sliver of me that barely got the chance to exist.

Alana purposely pushes herself against me expectantly – given the fact that Opie and Donna and Juice and Wendy are all tongue locked. But my attention has been compromised by the body down below, buying a caramel apple for a small brunette.

David Hale.

Immediately and without warning, a rage flutters in my veins, causing my grip on the safety bar to involuntarily tighten. It drips like an IV filled with acid in my mind, and all is lost but one thought. _Kill_.

My last day at Charming High had nearly been a bloody one, and I regretted each second I spent without that promised blood coating my knuckles. David Hale, the arrogant son of a bitch (and also the son of the county judge) had smarted off, bashing my father, my mother, and the Sons of Anarchy in one go, believing no retribution would be had on account of my leave of permanent absence. But retribution would be had. Yes, it fucking would. I owe him a bruise or two, and debt would be collected _tonight_.

As soon as the ferris wheel lets off, I lividly storm off in a blind rage, not even stopping to pay heed to my friend's confused shouts at my back. I know Juice and Opie will follow regardless – they know what I look like when I've been tipped over that edge, like I am now. Like a vulture set on prey, I'd watched David's moves from the ferris wheel, saw him make his way through the carnival to the cluster of games, and followed each of his specific tracks. He's by the popcorn stand now, standing with a group of his friends and the same small brunette. Good. The more the merrier, and I crave a brawl.

_Control it, Jax. Control. _

"Hale." I get his abrupt attention by forcibly shoving his back, causing David to drop his bag of popcorn. The fluffy bits pollute the pavement in wild scatters, and we now have the bystander's full attention. I'm ecstatic. I want them to see this fucker fall.

"What the – " David growls, spinning around to regard me with a fierce expression that doesn't even _begin_ to intimidate me. "Teller."

Opie and Juice flank me now, just as I predicted, sleeves rolled up and fists poised for action. I grin a bit evilly, jaw strict and tight with my intention. I feel the hunger eating at my insides and the poison drip, drip, dripping, urging me to let the rage explode. Like Pandora's box, once opened it could not be undone.

"Once in for all, Hale," I spit at his boots, nostrils flared. "Let's finish this shit."

As soon as we step towards one another, the tiny brunette accompanying David steps forward, a pillar between him and me with her palms held out. What the hell.

"No. _Stop_." She says, so strong and sure I can't help but pause. Who _is _this girl?

"Tara, get out of the way." David unaffectedly says, never taking his eyes from my face. I feel his searing gaze on me, but I'm not paying attention. My attention has been compromised; I'm looking at the girl. She's all wide hazel eyes, skinny and small, and her dark hair sweeps her elbows in a careless sort of way, like she simply doesn't care to _care _about it. She's pretty in that vulnerable way that makes you want to protect her, but it seems _Tara _doesn't need any protecting at all.

I'm intrigued immediately. She'd had enough balls to stand between my fists and their target.

And she looks familiar, too. I've probably seen her at school before I left – and now that I think of it, I have. In the same circles that David dances in, "social hierarchy" at its finest. But the summer has done something to her maturing face and body, and I have this weird thought. Something like I wish I would have noticed her before it happened, because maybe then it wouldn't be so cliché to find her beautiful right now.

"No," She says again, her eyes trained on mine. Because I'm the threat here. I'm the danger. I'm so wickedly interested that I barely even notice when the rage starts to lessen. "You're not going to hurt anyone." Tara adds.

I bark out a deeply amused laugh, finally dragging my eyes away to regard David again.

"You see, Hale? Even your girl thinks I'll beat your ass," I muse, and my friends chirrup laughs behind me. I hear female giggles, too. Wendy, Donna, and Ashley or Andrea or whatever must have joined the commotion, crow eaters and old lady's in the making. I don't want them here. If shit goes south, I'll be too distracted by their safety to fight the way I want to fight – recklessly, endlessly, _bloodily_. I'm even worried about Tara, this tiny stranger suspended between me and my enemy. She might as well be the enemy by guilty association, but my first instinct is to protect her.

Why is that?

David turns beat red, and grabs Tara's arm in a way that I really, really don't like, pulling her towards him. "_Shut up_, Tara."

I'm grabbing his wrist and wrenching his arm away from her before I even make the conscious decision to do it. David swings for me and misses as I dodge, fist nearly connecting with Tara's face. Before it can happen, I shield her body with mine. His fist hits my chest instead, and I'm helpless to the rage now, boiling and spilling over the heated pot of my brain.

I black out.

When I surface from the darkness, I'm in handcuffs, being escorted away from a broken nosed Hale by the Charming Police. I can taste the bitter, coppery liquid swishing in my mouth, but I'm painless. I'm so weightless, so high on my animosity that I begin manically laughing like a goddamned lunatic, and I hear Opie's laugh, too, a chorus sung for a winning brawl.

The last thing I see from the window of the cop car is Tara, watching me.

_**Tara **_

I'm not sure why I decide to go. All that I really know is that I want to see him again.

It's been a week since the fight at the summer carnival, and it's two weeks until Charming High opens it's rusting gates for the start of fall term – to which, I am dreading in wages of honors classes. David has stopped by the house four times to no avail; my father, though useless in many other aspects, provided advantageous in protecting my privacy. I've dodged David's phone calls, and pretended to be "otherwise engaged" when he _casually_ rang the doorbell every evening, though I know at some point I'll have to face him despite my non-confrontational problems.

He's been my best friend since first grade, my shoulder to lean on when my mother passed, and my supposed date to the upcoming homecoming dance in September. But all I can think about is his brash hands, and the way his fist had nearly connected with my cheekbone had it not been for...

I want to see _him_. Something in me is screaming for it.

Jackson Teller. Jax.

White trash, gang affiliated, bad-news-Teller had been _him_ since I could remember; when I was a little girl my mother held my small, dimpled hand and warned, "_Stay away from the Sons of Anarchy._" They were and are the kings of Charming, leather studded God's with guns strapped to their waists and authority wafting from their skin without even rightfully claiming it. I was afraid of them. I was afraid of Jax, the rebellious child who rode to school on the back of a Harley, and threw an immaculate right hook at the age of ten. I'd seen the street wars, and the chaos when the Sons clashed with the Mayans. I'd heard the gunshots, and the blazing of the motorcycles in their wake.

And as I got older, I was entranced by them. Entranced by Jax Teller, the teenage dropout with a darkness festering in his blue eyes.

It wasn't uncommon to wonder about Jax, the beautiful blonde boy with an exterior so rough, it would cut you in close proximity. So many of the girls fawned over him in school, whispering gossip about giving him sexual favors and crying in bathroom stalls when he disposed of them as he disposed of the others. He had fists of iron, a smirk that broke hearts, and a somber quietness that left me staring on more than one occasion, _who is he? _

After he dropped out, I stopped wondering. And the night of the carnival, it regrew like weeds in the garden of my mind.

_Who is Jax Teller? _

Heather, a sort of friend, was invited to Opie Winston's party, and allotted to bring a guest, she chose me. Heather had been a nice girl once, when our friendship first came about through library encounters and accelerated classes. But as she grew a C cup and lost her virginity, her niceness melted away and the crowd she flocked with was no longer mine. We stayed friends, despite our polar opposition, and though she'd invited me to several parties in the past, I never agreed. Until tonight.

I knew he would be here. Curious enough to reside on this side of the tracks, I'd said yes.

So we go. We arrive with our hands linked, and my chest thrums like a hummingbird in my chest.

The party is... _wild. _I assume it's Opie's house we're standing in, and I can't help but wonder how angry his parents will be when they return home. It's in shambles; the structure is shaking with the loudest classic rock, bodies are spilling beer from plastic cups and making out left and right. The boys are rowdy, loud, and ridiculously plastered; every girl is wearing belly shirts and jean shorts that might as well be underwear, just as Heather is. I immediately feel out of place in my jeans and black tank top, so sober that all I can do is stare.

"Tara!" Heather shouts over the music, grabbing my hand in hers. "Come on, lets get a drink!"

She pulls me towards the kitchen, weaving through bodies and stopping a few times to hug friends, most of which I only vaguely know through school. They stare at me with wide, judgmental glances, and I know what they're thinking. _She doesn't belong here. _

And they're right. I don't.

But I have to see him. _Is he here? _

When we get to the kitchen, Heather strategically ducks through masses of people and grabs two beers from one of the ice buckets, handing one over to me when she weaves back through. I've never drank before, I've never smoked. I've never stayed out past curfew, or wore anything I couldn't wear to school in accordance with the dress code. I look at the bottle in my hand and think about twisting off the cap and just, _doing it, _but then I think of my father out cold, lying in his own puke, and I can't bring myself to. I just hold it in my hands, following Heather like a lost puppy when she goes out the sliding door to the back lawn.

There's a bonfire back here, and even more bodies crammed than there were inside. Glass crunches under my black leather boots, the ones that were my mother's before she passed. Broken beer bottles. As soon as we hit the grass, a boy grabs Heather and pulls her up into a dramatic hug. I recognize him from the carnival and as Jax's sidekick – I know his last name is Ortiz from an English class we used to share, but he has a strange nickname that I can't remember now.

"Those taste better when you open them." A voice says over my shoulder. I spin around to regard it, and he's _there_. Disarrayed blonde hair, casual smirk, big blue eyes that almost look illuminating in the moonlight. My heart skips as my chest constricts, immediately nervous and terrified and captivated.

Jax.

He doesn't wait for me to say anything – he grabs the beer bottle from my hands and pops the top off, surrendering it back to me. I stare at him. He stares back. I watch as his breathtaking eyes breathe me in, seizing me up as all the others had but there's something... _different_ about the way he does it now. I think of his bloody knuckles and David's broken nose, and how it took two officers to pry Jax off of him. There's a healing cut on his lip now, but nothing else – David had so obviously lost that fight, with his purple eyes, purple nose, and split open cheekbones.

Why am I not afraid of Jax? The violent creature that only destroys?

"What are you doing here?" He finally says, addressing what everyone is already thinking.

_I don't belong here. _

"Babysitting a friend," I only half lie, tilting my chin up to exude strength. I can handle myself, or haven't I already proved that? I decide to be feisty with him. "Shouldn't you be in prison or something?"

Jax laughs at me, all husky and low with a dangerous cast to it. "Seems your pussy boyfriend isn't pressing charges. Wouldn't surprise you, would it?"

"He's not my boyfriend." I deadpan, shoving the beer in my hand back to him. I do it to make a point, _I don't want anything of yours. _But I can't help it – I'm curious about him. So curious that I can't bring myself to stop the masquerading, and get the hell out of here.

He looks at my beer in his hands with his eyebrows raised, glancing back to me with this expression – I can't quite put my finger on it. As I'm looking at him I understand how so many girls fell into his trap without a second's hesitation; he's so beautiful, it's hardly fair. Something so dangerous and evil should be wrapped in the ugliest packaging, I decide, a jagged knife turned human so that everyone would heed warnings about getting too close.

But he's not a jagged knife. He's everything that aches in the pit of my stomach, and I hate myself for it.

"Where's this friend you're babysitting?" He says, challenging me with a knowing smirk. I want to smack it or kiss it off his face, I can't decide which. "Seems to me like you aren't doing too great of a job – those parents should get their money back."

I look around then, because the bastard is right. I've lost Heather. A small bit of panic rises in me – one for being alone at this out of hand party, and two for Heather ending up drugged or raped or something heinous because I had stopped paying attention to her.

"I have to find her," I start to leave, but Jax stops me.

"Don't worry. She's having a very... _juicy _time right now, I'd imagine." It's a private joke that I don't understand, but he laughs a little and it chips away at my anxiety. "At her request, I'm babysitting _you _now, Tara."

When had Heather talked to Jax? Did she seriously tell him to keep an eye on me? Why _him_, of all people? My cheeks flush red and I grimace at him. "I don't need your help."

Jax looks at me a bit seriously and says, "But don't you?"

I know he's referring to the carnival incident, when he'd put his body in front of mine to protect me from David, and so I don't say anything. I bite my lip and look at my shoes, unable to say what I should have. _Thank you. _Even if that had been the reason I began to annoyingly wonder about him again, it was still a kind thing for him to do, protecting me. I didn't mean anything to him – in fact, most of my friends had been his enemy since elementary. But something in him wanted to protect me that day.

"Seriously, what brought princess out of her castle?" He muses, bringing my gaze back to his. He's smiling – not his usual smirk, full of innuendos and double meanings. It's a genuine smile, and I want to tell him that I like him better this way.

I smile back a bit ruefully. "What brings the criminal to the princess's rescue?"

Jax grins, offering a hand to me. I hesitate for a moment, seizing him up and his intentions, trying to decide what path this would ultimately carry me down. And then I take the leap off the cliff, no regard for consequences or fear or any other reason that I should not be taking Jax Teller's hand. I slide mine into his. They're strong, calloused, and engulf mine in size.

"Curiosity." He answers, and then, "Welcome to our world, Tara."


	2. Chapter 2

**_AUTHORS NOTE:_ **Holy hell, you guys. Thank you so much for following, favoriting, and all your comments! Only one chapter, and already so much love. You guys are seriously the best! I hope you keep reading - so much more to come! I'll try to update at least every few days.

_**TRIGGER WARNING!** _Mentions of suicide and alcoholism.

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><p><span><em><strong>1999; Jax<strong>_

It's my twenty first birthday. I'm so drunk I can barely see straight, can barely think hard enough to put one foot in front of the other. So I don't try, I just lay motionless on the tile in my bathroom, deciding whether or not I will let myself throw up for the third time. It's three a.m, or maybe four a.m, or maybe five because everyone is passed out cold on the floors of my newly purchased house. Some are naked, some are clothed, but they are all affiliated with the Sons, a common ground that is now _mine_. I've fucked a fair amount of crow eaters tonight, threw up on one, passed out during another, and called several of them the name that I can't let myself think of sober. They didn't care; I am a Son. I am my father's legacy. I am a Man of Mayhem.

I am lost.

I crawl towards my bedroom. It's empty – I made it clear that it was off limits at the beginning of the party, an escape clause when necessary. When I make it inside, I so pathetically crawl across the carpet and I reach for the phone. I don't think twice; I'm not really thinking at all. The only thing I have is instinct, and the instinct is this; _I need her. _

I dial the number I weaseled out of Donna so long ago, even though I couldn't bring myself to use it, I just memorized it instead, a branding on the back of my brain. In case I needed it, I told myself. In case something should happen, I justified. When really I just wanted whatever shred of her permitted, and all that's left is a number. _A fucking number_.

She answers on the third ring.

"Hello?" Her voice is everything I want, everything I need, everything that splits me open and rubs me so fucking raw that I have to hold my chest with my free hand, forcing the pieces to stay together. I'm going to lose it. _I'm going to lose it_.

I can't say anything. I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. What am I supposed to say? What is even left? Silence.

"Jax?... Jax..."

_She knows its me. _

It breaks me like a damn has been destroyed, streaming out in crashing waves. All I feel is the impact of the pain, slamming into me over and over again, reliving it all. The silk of her tawny hair between my calloused fingers, the touch of her ivory skin rubbing against mine, the bell of her laugh, the warmth of her smile, the length of her eyelashes resting against her cheeks as she slept in my arms, _in my goddamned arms. _I don't realize I'm crying until I taste the salt on my tongue, see the wetness dripping down onto my t-shirt. I haven't cried since I was eighteen years old, when our irrevocable decisions were made and there was no going back, no ifs or buts or _someday_.

I let her go.

When she waited at a bus station in vein. When the pain was too much for me to bear that I felt nothing, in shock and numb and barely breathing. When I spent too many days not sleeping or eating and feeling as if I could press a gun to my temple and pull the trigger without a second thought.

_I need you, god damnit, _I should say. _Why did you leave me? _I want to beg.

_Why didn't I follow you?_

Neither of us say anything. I let myself uncharacteristically cry into the phone, curled into a pitiful, drunken ball on my forsaken floor. After awhile, I hear her soft sobs, too, reciprocating mine. And we cry together. I don't know how long it lasts, because I fall asleep like that, cradling my phone to my cheek like I used to cradle her.

When I wake up in the morning, the line is dead.

_**1994; Tara**_

"Hello?" I answer the phone, setting aside my mug of tea. I'm thumbing through my biology textbook, preparing ahead for the coming week. School will be starting soon, and my nerves are buzzing, the lot of my courses advanced placement.

"Tara, it's me," David's voice says on the other line. "Please don't hang up."

I sigh, thinking for a second that I _will _hang up, but I know I can't keep running. "What do you want, David?"

"Just to talk." He pauses, taking a breath like he's prepared a monologue for this moment. "Look, I'm really, really sorry. I didn't mean to be such a jerk at the carnival, Teller just sets me on edge, it had nothing to do with you, and –"

"It's fine, David." I cut him off, not wanting to talk about Jax with him. Opie's party was a few days ago, and my mind has been so polluted with Jax that one more thought could turn my entire head into toxic waste. I _can't_ get swept up by him, and I can't let myself go any further than how far I've already gone. I don't belong in that life, and I certainly don't belong with him – not that it's an option, anyway. I've seen the way he is with girls, and I refuse to be another notch in his belt. The party was a one time thing, a bought of my curiosity. I saw him. We spoke. I waited for Heather, and then I went home. That's all.

"Really? You forgive me?"

"Yes," I lie, heaving another sigh. "All forgiven."

I hear a breath of relief on his end, and I almost feel bad for being so angry and unforgiving with him. "Good. Great. Thank you," He says in a chipper tone. "Do you want to hang out? A bunch of us were going to go to the lake."

"I can't," I respond, turning the page of my textbook. "I'm studying."

"Seriously, Tara? School hasn't even started yet. Come on, come have fun with us."

"Some other time." I say, placing my index finger over the sentence I left off with. "I've got to go."

He sounds deflated when he says, "Okay. Some other time, then."

I say bye and hang up, picking back up my mug. I study a bit manically the rest of the afternoon, either trying to relentlessly push myself ahead or fill my brain with something other than Jax Teller, I can't be sure. But I study the first four chapters, memorizing definitions and taking the chapter quizzes at the end, shoving so much information in my head that I don't have even an inch to have a stray thought. I stay there at the desk in my bedroom until I hear my dad stumble out of his bedroom.

He is drunk, so I don't want to be home. Though he's a perpetual drunk and there's a ceaseless curse of alcoholism commandeering our lives, there's a difference between drunk and _drunk_, a difference that I take careful warning to. When he reaches that end of the spectrum, I hide away or disappear, depending on where he channels his rage. He's mentioned my dead mother too many times for me to feel safe just hiding away in my bedroom, and so I choose to disappear. I take my copy of _Jane Eyre_ and slip out of my bedroom window, the sky pink with twilight.

I walk around Charming for a little bit, the afternoon warm, crisp, and mellow on the streets – not many are out around this time, probably sitting at a dinner table with a family. A luxury I don't have. I feel the usual pain underneath my ribcage when I think about _family; _a sore spot festering on the wound of my heart. I was really only a little girl when she passed, young enough to forget the small details now – like the exact number of laugh lines she had, where her hair fell on her shoulders, how many freckles there were on her hands. I lose more and more as I get older, and the only way I ever feel better about it, about losing her, is to be with her.

I curl around the sidewalk and move towards the Charming cemetery.

_**Jax**_

Me, Opie, Donna, Wendy, and a handful of others are headed down to Santa Cruz when I see her.

Tara, walking alone, clutching what looks like a novel to her small chest and headed towards the cemetery. I don't really have a plan when I promptly turn my bike south, motioning for Opie and the gang to pull over and wait.

"Hang on a sec!" I yell over the sound of my Harley, watching as they all pull theirs to the curb. I'm not shocked that they listen to me without question or hesitation; it's my dead father who was the king of Charming, my soon-to-be step father who is his successor, and my name slabbed onto the Sons of Anarchy legacy, one week until I can call myself a Prospect. Opie and I will be the youngest to ever be allotted, and something about it makes me feel on edge. It's like I'm pissing my youth away, too soon to grasp a real understanding of it, but I am reassured every time I'm in that clubhouse. They are my family, my life. This is what I'm supposed to do; _this is who I am_.

I pull up next to Tara on my bike, and she looks over at me from the pavement with a surprised expression, creasing the smooth planes of her immaculate skin. As soon as I return that look with a smile, it's like she puts up a facade and masks her face into total blankness. She looks away from me, stares straight ahead, and keeps walking; I keep following her on my bike, touching the ground with my feet on both ends. She's purposely putting out the vibe that she doesn't give a damn, and it pinches some part of me that I'm not sure existed before now. I want her to _want_ to see me, and instead I feel like a wrinkle in her ironed out plan.

"Hey." I try to coax, unable to keep my eyes off of her.

"Hi." She deadpans, refusing to look back at me. I don't get it – I thought... Hell, I don't _know_ what I thought, but this is the last thing that I expect from her.

"Where are you going?"

Tara finally glances over at me again, and then, as if on cue, over her shoulder. I follow her gaze to my friends, parked in a group and watching us intensely. Wendy is scowling.

"Where are _you _going?" She deflects, raising an eyebrow at me. At least she stops walking now, so I can park my bike and meet her on the sidewalk. I stand in front of her purposely, as if to say, _stop walking away from me. _

"Santa Cruz," I say and then, like an asshole, "Now it's _your_ turn to answer _me_."

To my surprise, Tara cracks a small smile at this. I realize that I am constantly surprised by her, endlessly fascinated and never even the slightest inattentive. She sucks me in effortlessly, captivates me without even trying to, and that in itself is inexpressible for me. Because I've never felt that way before. I've never not been _bored. _

"I'm visiting my mother." Tara finally tells me, a little bit of sadness in her voice.

"Does she live close, or –"

"Yeah," Tara says, gesturing to the opening of the cemetery. "She lives here."

I nod a little at that, unfazed. I'm a friend to death. "Seems your mom, my dad, and little brother share a home."

I assume she's taken aback, because we stare at one another now. Her hazel eyes are wide and searching, meeting mine with a question that seems to hang in the air, suspended between us. _Are we not so different after all? _

"Jax!" I hear Opie yell at me over the distance. "Let's go, man."

I hold up my hand in a lazy way, asking him to give me a minute in one gesture.

"I have to go." I say, and then when I realize I really don't want to walk away from her right now, I add genuinely, "Do you want to come with me?"

Tara purses her lips, her expression tense and pensive. I can tell my question is tugging at her in the same unexpected way that her initial iciness tugged at me; unwarranted, enticing, and so insurmountable. And I can't understand it and I can't put a name to it. All I know for certain is that I have this odd sensation that I want to stop time, stop everything and everyone else outside of this moment, and just _talk_ to her. Understand her, and let her understand me. Tell her about that hole inside of my chest, the one I know matches hers in size and shape and all the sores surrounding it. Because I may be the criminal, the rebel, the outlaw, and she may be the princess, and we may be from entirely different, parallel worlds that are never meant to overlap, but even if she isn't a choice, now or ever, I would _still_ choose her.

I barely know her. Barely understand this uncanny, new found attraction. And I still would.

Finally, she says, "I can't."

I try not to look disappointed, but it's pretty damned hard. In that split second when our eyes met before, I was sure she would say yes.

I'll never get used to not being right about her.

"Yeah. Yeah, alright, darlin'," I respond, faltering, walking back to my bike. I kick it to life, buckling my helmet back on my head.

She calls out to me. "Jax."

I don't look back at her when I say, "Maybe some other lifetime." And I ride away from her.

We blaze down the roads, down the highways, and disappear out of Charming.

I think about her the entire time.

* * *

><p>I'm roaring drunk on the beach, lit up by the blistering bonfire and the blanket of stars in the navy sky. We'll sleep here tonight, the reckless teens who believe they have a sense of the world in the backs of their pockets, living on the dregs of their innocence before reality smacks them. I'm floaty but also raw in the sense that I'm unable to exist outside of my head tonight. I've been thinking too much about my damning path, my smoke clotted lungs, and the fullness of Tara's bottom lip and how it looks when she smiles at me, like she can see all the gory parts that I keep hidden. I can't stifle the overwhelming ache in me – the one that begs just to be near her and let her explore all the bits of me that fascinate and entice her. I know she wonders about me like I wonder about her – I <em>know <em>she does. She had to feel it that night at Opie's, and she had to feel it hours ago, when I matched her dead mother with my own losses. When I looked at her with all the world's we could live in beneath my eyes.

And then I remember where I am, and who I'm with, and who I'm always going to be.

We aren't cut from the same cloth, Tara and I, and my destiny is too crooked and dark to bring her along.

Wendy lays beside me in the sand now, her hands searching for mine. I don't reciprocate, and I flinch when she finds my skin, trying to suck me into her.

I don't want her. It resonates with me, loud as ever, because any other night I would let my body tangle with hers in such a sinful way that God would turn a blind eye. Because I don't care. Because I know she wants me. Because I know she slept her way to _here,_ in my reluctant arms. I'm her prize for climbing the ladder of all my friends.

And she'll never be rewarded.

"Jax..." There's a beg in her voice, and it makes me grimace. Her full, voluptuous body is pressed into mine with needy intentions, and I just want it to end. I want to will it away without smashing her feelings like a pumpkin on the pavement.

I don't even consider. "No." I say, and gently push her away from me. "Not tonight, Wendy."

She rolls away with a heavy sigh, like she expected it all along. After a long beat of dead silence, she says, "She'll never want you, Jax."

"What?" My voice is more fierce than I mean for it to be, but I know where this is going. And who the fuck does Wendy think she is, addressing it now?

"Tara. She's not like us. She's not like _you_," Wendy keeps going. "You're never going to have her."

I want to get angry. I want to scream. I want to force Wendy to back the hell _away_ from me, and realize her place; I am not a force to be reckoned with, or diabolically diagnosed. But the anger and disdain melts away with the existence of reality – with what I already know.

She's right.

I don't say anything.

When I was twelve years old, I held my brother's, Thomas's, hand while he laid comatose in the hospital. We were born with the same genetic defect, my mother explained. Our hearts "just weren't right", was her easy way of putting it. The "family flaw". Thomas slipped into a coma and died soon thereafter, bringing about the brief disappearance of my father, who wrote short and distant letters stamped from Belfast.

_Stay strong, Jackson. I love you. _

After Tommy passed, I used to hold my arm over my chest at night, succumbing to the waves of incomprehensibly impenetrable anxiety attacks, and willing my body to _stay together_. I thought if I didn't, if I didn't stay strong, my heart would split and my body would fall apart. Because it wasn't right – _I_ wasn't right. Something wasn't right inside of me, and it felt like it could just snap at any second, like it snapped for Tommy. As I grew older, it became the justification for everything. For my rebelliousness, for my evilness, for my rage, for my need to destroy or die. I was born wrong. My heart was broken and twisted and if I didn't keep the pieces together, it would crumble like the bits of a dried out cookie.

_I was born wrong._

Tara will never be like me. And she will never be mine.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Jax**_

"To the two youngest prospects this club has ever had. To JT and to Piney for continuing this legacy," Clay says, raising a shot glass full of whiskey. "To Jax and Opie. Welcome, boys."

"_Jax and Opie!_" The clubhouse erupts, tossing back their liquor and hooting welcoming cheers.

And just like that, it's done. The fresh leather cut on my back is a part of my own skin, a patch sewn in that dubs me worthy to begin _reaping_ the same cloth my father has. This clubhouse, these men, this life has always been my home, but now? They are my blood. I belong with them more than I ever have, and all of the anxiety I had before this moment melts away immediately – this is right. This is what I'm meant to do, regardless of the innocence I now know is dead.

I toss back my shot in synchronization with Opie, and grin like a damned idiot.

_I'm going to be a Son. My best friend is going to be a Son. _We _are going to be Sons._

It was close for Opie before now, who'd been dragged away when his mom split – running from Charming and Piney for the same reasons I choose to wear this cut now. Only a month had passed, before Opie showed back up on Piney's front doorstep, carrying his bag and all the permanent promises of his chosen, sure path. He chose Charming, he chose the Sons, and he chose his preordained brotherhood – there was no going back for him. And had he not ran from his mother a few months back, this decision would weigh differently on my head, ceaselessly wondering what other lives could be possible for me as it'd could have been for him. But I knew, the instant Opie came home, that this is where I belonged.

My mother's arms are around me immediately, her wine red lips connecting to my cheek. "I'm so proud of you, baby."

"Thanks, mom." I say, affectionately kissing her back after palming away the ghosted lipstick on my skin.

Clay meets us both, mauling me in a strong embrace that is both familiar and double weighted. Not only will he officially become my second father in a few weeks, but he will also be my president, spearheading the anarchism he helped my father create. First 9.

"Proud of you, son." He says, pulling away to put both hands on my shoulders. "Exactly what JT always wanted."

I smile and I know this is right, but it tugs at something inside of me that prevents it from being jovial. A memory, buried. A frown. A line in a letter that I once knew, but have now forgotten. _What my father always wanted. _

"Yeah," I nod, a bit of blonde hair flopping over my eyes. "Thank you."

"Aye, Jackie Boy!" I hear Chibs yelling from the bar. I peer over Clay's broad shoulder to see him, pouring more liquor into shot glasses. I grin knowingly, because he's singing old Scottish drinking songs like he always does when he's about to get everyone drooling and pissing their pants by the end of the night. I pat Clay on the back a few more times and kiss my mother again before going to the bar, collecting another full shot glass. The house is full with patches, the other prospects, the hang-arounds, the crow eaters, and some other charters who crave a good party. This isn't the usual for prospect initiation, but this isn't just _that_ – this is John Teller's and Piney Winston's sons. This is the blood of the blood, claiming the brotherhood for their own.

My family. All that I am.

"Cheers, Jackie." Chibs knocks his glass against mine and we toss them back together. No one minds the fact that I'm a minor here; they conveniently forget my age every time I step foot into the clubhouse, and my mother has turned a blind eye on my activities tonight, so I cut loose.

In her eyes, I am now a man. I don't take it lightly, what that means for the Tellers now.

Opie sits next to us at the bar, the same ghoulish grin on his face. We look at each other and communicate without saying a single word.

_We fucking made it. _

The music starts and everyone begins the wild swell of the night, laughing, dancing, drinking, smoking, and living without consequence. Some of my friends are here – Juice (who will work at TM and hang around until he's deemed worthy to be a prospect), Wendy, Donna, Lowell Jr., and Heather. Seeing Heather immediately makes me think of Tara, whom I expectantly haven't seen in weeks. I'd hoped our paths would cross again, serendipity marking our stars even somewhat crossable, but I know the moment has passed along with the road I will not travel. She's no where on these streets and our brief encounters have lost the strike of curiosity – I know where I will go, and I know where she will go. I know where she belongs – at Homecoming dances, in graduation gowns, and then college, in a big city with bright eyes. A million miles away from where I belong, so I let my thoughts of her melt away, along with all the hope I ever bore for more than two stolen conversations.

She's better off without me. She's _safer _without me.

I'm only sixteen, a summer between my old life and now, and I barely remember punching in a locker combination, drinking booze underneath the bleachers at football games, and sleeping during lectures. It's over now.

I'm born again, with a curse over my head.

I'm laughing with my friends, beating Donna at darts, when I hear the blaze of more motorcycles over the sound of our music. I assume it's another charter, before the doors kick in and the bullets start blazing. Another body tackles mine immediately, meant to shield me, but my head hits the table wrong and my vision starts to blur at the edges.

I see fire, I see blood, and I hear screams before I pass out.

When I wake up, I'm lying on the lot and I'm whole, but mayhem and death surrounds me.

_Jesus Christ. _

_**Tara**_

David is walking me home after a late night of studying when I hear it – the roar of the motorcycles' engines, and the quick bullets that sound like something from a war movie. I see smoke rising over the town fences, close to Teller-Morrow. I hear the cries, and the motorcycles blazing up again, like they'd reached their destination and simply changed their minds about stopping the ride.

David and I both stop in our tracks and look up in the sky, the gray clouds polluting the night sky with terror.

"What the hell..." He mutters, and I am in just as much awe.

And then it dawns on me, smacking me hard like a freight train.

It's not close to Teller-Morrow. It _is_ Teller-Morrow. It's where the Sons of Anarchy are.

_Jax. _

I don't even think about it when I take off running down the street, directly toward the chaos.

"Tara!" David calls, but I ignore him, sprinting manically down the Charming streets until I reach the car garage. There's something in my gut that tells me he's there.

He's there, and he might be dead.

I'm out of breath already, but the wind gets pounded out of me when I take in the scene. There are bodies scattered across the lot – men, women, and kids my age coughing and sputtering, some carrying limp or limping bodies. Their faces are covered in black and red, which I realize is the combination of smoke residue and blood. The building off to the side that proclaims it _Sons of Anarchy_ is in flames, and I hear the screams coming from inside. The horror of it rises bile in the back of my throat.

Some of them didn't make it out.

_Jax. _

"Tara, let's get out of here!" David yells like a goddamned coward, and I turn on him with a rage I didn't know I had inside of me.

"Go to the office over there and call 9-1-1, David!"

"Tara –"

"_NOW_!" I scream, and then take off running again, leaving him in the dust of his gutlessness. I weave through the masses of people, tending to the wounded, crying and holding bodies that are too wounded to be tended to, and I feel the tears stinging my eyes the longer I look for him.

_Jax, please. Jax please, don't be dead_.

_Maybe he's not here. Maybe he's at home, safe and sound_, I try to calm myself down. But something in me screams that it's not true, and the more I let the anxiety and fear build up inside of me, the more frantic I become, looking at every face for his. _Oh, God, Jax. Please. _

I almost give up and shrink to my knees on the pavement, and then I see him. A halo of blonde hair, limbs intact, _conscious_. I don't even have the time to be relieved because I realize what he's doing; he's crouched over a body, his hand pressing and containing a wound on its leg. I recognize Opie as the one hurt, and he's moaning and coughing and bleeding out between Jax's fingers. I immediately run to them, going on nothing but instinct.

"Take his belt off! Tie it around his thigh." I say, pressing my hand on Opie's bullet hole to free up Jax's hands. Out of sheer curiosity, I've read ways to survive in anatomy books, studying the human body in ways I never thought that I would use. Until now. I know what Opie needs is a makeshift tourniquet, at least to prevent him from losing too much blood.

There's too much happening around us to regard one another or for him to question my existence there. Jax does it immediately, tying it tightly above Opie's wound and securing it. We both press our hands over the gore, our fingers touching and creating a bandage. I don't mind the blood that coats my hands – all I can think of is saving Opie's life.

And I do.

* * *

><p>I sit at the hospital for hours. So many of them are wheeled in that I lose count of the wounded, and so many wait for news of life or death in the waiting rooms that they don't seem to notice I am not one of them. An older woman with blonde hair and an SOA branded t-shirt brings me coffee. A little boy plays with my long, tawny hair, and I'm sure his father is one of the men wearing one of those leather jackets with the white emblems sewn onto them. One of them says <em>Men of Mayhem <em>and I wonder what it means – really, wondering about _all_ of them, just as I have always wondered about Jax.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing here or why I'm waiting, but every time I tell myself that I should go, I can't. I need to know if Opie is okay. I need to know if _Jax_ is.

And something feels right about sitting in this chair, surrounded by the side of life that is forbidden to me.

Sometime on the third hour, I nod off in my seat, falling asleep with my knees tucked to my chest.

I don't know how long it's been that I've been sleeping, when I feel hands push hair out of my eyes and line the side of my cheek.

"Tara." Jax's voice is husky and low, coaxing me from rest. I blink my eyes open and see him standing above me, holding the very ends of my hair in a way that's so affectionate I almost feel embarrassed. He lets the strands go when I sit upright, stretching a little carefully so that I don't wake up the little boy next to me. The waiting room has dwindled a little, but not much. I notice Wendy sitting with Lowell Jr., who wears a smoke blackened Teller-Morrow mechanics shirt. I know him from school, but not for good reasons. I can only imagine how Lowell and Wendy know one another.

I look back up to Jax. "What time is it?"

"Around 4 a.m," He says, and then nods to the door. "Can I talk to you?"

I take a beat to assess what he needs, and when I realize I have no idea, I just nod. I stand up easily, smoothing out my shirt, and follow him out into the deserted hallway. He waits to talk until the swinging door behinds us closes all the way.

"Are you okay?" Jax finally says, and I almost laugh. I'm probably slap happy from the lack of sleep, but it wasn't _me _who was almost killed tonight.

"Yes. I'm fine, Jax," I respond, folding my arms across my chest. "Are you? Is Opie?"

"Yeah, Op's gonna be alright," He rolls up the sleeves to his bloody grimy blue flannel, pushing them up to his elbows. "Doc's say what you did saved him."

I smile softly at that, releasing a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. _I saved a life. _

"And your family? Friends?" I ask, not even sure they're two different entities to him.

He frowns a little, the lines burrowing sadness in a way that I hate to see on him. "For the most part."

A beat passes between us, and we look at each other the same way we always do. His sapphire eyes searing into mine, speaking to parts of me that twist and lurch for him. I'll never understand it. I'll never understand the flame that burns between us. Since that night at Opie's party, all I have done is try to subdue it or ignore its existence entirely, pushing down the feeling that wants to rope me into such an unknown, dangerous life. As if tonight isn't a testament to that danger, I don't know what is – I've never been in the center of so much turmoil before I alarmingly ran right into it. And it scares me, more than anything, that I will run right into the depths of Hell just to find him buried beneath it all.

I can't stop it. I can't stop the way I feel about him.

I gave it a name the second I ran to that burning building.

Jax breaks the connection and looks away, sighing something frustrated.

"What's wrong?" I try.

"What were you doing there tonight, Tara?" His voice is edgier than I thought it would be, and I'm a bit taken aback by it. "You could've been killed."

"But I wasn't." I stubbornly respond, furrowing my eyebrows at him.

"But you could've been. What were you doing there?" He's obviously angry, but he almost sounds anxious, too, and I'm at a loss as to _why_. He looks back at me and I falter under his gaze.

"I heard the guns, I saw the smoke. I just..." I pause, trying to make sense of it myself. "I had a feeling." It's the best I can do without feeling like an idiot.

He scowls, and it breaks something in my chest. "_What_ feeling?"

"That you were there! That you were hurt! I don't know, Jax," I burst out, defeated. "I just know I had to get there. I was... God, I was scared, okay?"

Jax lets out another heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes as if to keep his head from splitting apart. I saw my mother do it when I was younger, back when the brain tumor made her head feel like it was singing in a tank of acid. The motion makes me bite my lower lip in consternation, realizing I'm only making everything worse for Jax – a headache he can't get rid of. I shouldn't have gone to help tonight. I shouldn't have stayed.

I shouldn't have felt all the things I did, running onto that lot and frantically searching for him because he wasn't mine to search for.

"I should go." I turn to leave, but he gently grabs my wrist, preventing it. Keeping me _here_. I spin back around and we face each other again, closer than before. He doesn't say anything for a long time; he just looks at me and holds my wrist, his thumb lazily smoothing over my veins. I know I shouldn't, but I let him. Because nothing feels more right than this moment, and the way he's touching me now.

"I don't want to stay away from you anymore." He faintly says, just for me.

And breathlessly, recklessly, I whisper, "I don't, either."

He smiles a bit sadly, and it's like I already know what he's going to say because I'm thinking it, too. "How does this work, Tara?"

My eyes fill with small, frustrated tears – I know it's because I'm tired, my emotions are so raw, and I witnessed so many heinous things tonight, but I still feel incredibly stupid for it. "It can't. It doesn't."

"Tara –"

"Jackson." A woman's voice says from down the hall, standing with her hands on her hips. I turn to look at her, and see a warrior. All dark hair with chunky blonde streaks, tall black boots, leather studded top. I imagine her with a gun strapped to her waist, poised on the top of a tank and ready to demolish countries with one flick of her manicured finger. "Clay wants to see you."

"Yeah, okay, mom," Jax nods, letting go of my wrist. "Coming."

His mother lingers for a second, and my gaze catches hers. She narrows her eyes in the most infinitesimal way, and though it's barely noticeable, I see a snake.

_That's his mother? _

When she disappears down the adjacent hall, I look back to Jax. He musses his hair and clears his throat, and I feel the awkwardness of being caught in such an intimate moment with him. An intimate moment that I don't know the meaning of.

"I have to go," He says what I already assumed. "You should go home and get some sleep."

I nod, palming my bleary eyes and sniffling a little. "Okay."

Jax leans in swiftly and presses his lips to my forehead, lingering. I close my eyes and inhale, smelling only smoke but its fitting. It fits our flames, inextinguishable.

"I'll find you soon." And then he walks down the hallway, following his mother's tracks.

It's only then that I really notice the leather vest on his back. It's plain except for the bottom; it has a white patch with the word _PROSPECT_ written on it, accompanied by a small _MC_.

It's the final sign that it has already begun, and I have no idea where I belong in it all.


	4. Chapter 4

_**AUTHORS NOTE:** _Hey guys! Sorry this update took me awhile - Halloween activities kept me busy. I also wanted to say that I did take some creative liberties with the unfolding of the story, and hopefully you guys don't hate me too much for tampering! I appreciate all the love and support, I'm overwhelmed with the positive responses!

* * *

><p><em><span><strong>Tara<strong>_

Two days later, her face is everywhere – a nightmare I cannot escape from. Television stations, newspapers, memorabilia in the Charming High hallways, and on the face of every saddened civilian. They should be outraged and terrified, but they have soaked up and accepted the false information of an "electrical fire", claiming an innocent. Heather Moore, only sixteen years old. Student council member, prom committee, and fried to bits inside of the Sons of Anarchy clubhouse.

Heather is dead, and it's his fault.

When I first discover it, I try to justify it for him, already foolishly at his defense. It isn't his fault that his life is ludicrous and dangerous, I lie to myself. It isn't his fault that he endangers his friends by thrusting them into the hands of evil, forcing them to walk a highly suspended, burning tight rope in the name of some outlawed brotherhood. And the more I disbelieve it, the more I defend him for no reason at all, the more I try to make him an angel instead of demon, the angrier I become. With Jackson Teller, and with myself – for ever believing, even for an instant, that he could be trusted.

She's dead. It's his fault. _And he didn't tell me_.

I'm restless and exhausted at school, pencils shaking in my trembling fingers and brain straying to rage every chance it gets to wander. I barely have a grip on reality, so I coast through my day, never jotting down a single note and sipping water during lunch because I can't stomach anything at all. I see her face everywhere, and though we grew apart so long ago and I barely considered us close, I feel an insurmountable bought of guilt for her death. I know I couldn't control it, and she had been dancing in their grasps long before I peaked my toe in, but I stew on it anyway – on action and reaction, cause and effect, running down every single thing I've ever done that could have possibly pushed her in the direction of Jackson Teller and his bike gang ghouls.

I convince myself that I hate him, and ignore the parts of me that know it isn't true.

I'm walking home at the end of the day when David catches up to me. I don't want to see him either – he's been all over the news as well. The paperboy turned _town hero_, placing an emergency call just at the right time. Never mind the fact that I had to scream at him to do it.

"Tara, hey!" He jogs into stride with me, slowing down so our paces match.

"Hi." I deadpan, existing no where on the same galaxy. My mind is far away from here, somewhere in a big city where I can easily disappear into a sea of insignificant people.

"Are we still on for this weekend?"

I have no idea what he's talking about, but I don't really care either way. "Hmm?"

"The Homecoming dance. Remember?" His voice sounds crestfallen, but I don't even care enough to look at his face.

_How could I have trusted him? How could I have let him touch me? Press his lips on my forehead? Tell me that he doesn't want to stay away from me? _

"Sure, yeah."

"Tara, are you okay?" I finally look at David now, mostly to persuade him that I am fine, I am _just fine_, and not to prod in the sore places I'm trying to hide. I'm not very convincing – I can see it on his face, but I don't try harder. I just need... I need...

"I'll meet you there at eight, okay? I have to go." I curl around the opposite street to my address, and make way to the cemetery. I think he calls something out to me, but I don't hear it. I can't hear anything but the sound of my own heart, thrumming against my chest so hard that it hurts.

I sit at my mother's grave for so long that it starts to grow dark outside, and as the streetlights come on, I finally pull myself up off the dying grass and head home.

That's when I see their headstones. John Thomas Teller and Thomas Teller.

I wonder, very darkly, if they were fried to bits, too.

_**Jax**_

"We have to hit back _now_, and hit hard."

"Think wisely, Clay. We can't afford more violence in Charming."

"It's my goddamn back yard they're taking a piss in! We have to hit back before these wetbacks think they can kill our women and children without consequence. It's personal now."

"Aye, but personal revenge won't take us far. We need to be smart about this, Clay, before the next retaliation blows a hole right in the middle of our club."

"They blew a hole right through my son!" Piney thunders, slamming his fists onto the table. "_We hit them back right now_, goddammit!"

"We vote it." Clay grabs his gavel.

I don't have a say, I don't have a vote. Opie and I aren't technically allowed past the church doors, but we're allotted tonight because the chaos has struck us, too. The clubhouse is burnt up and a team works on fixing it to its former glory. Opie has a cast on his leg and a crutch to support him, and I have a sore head and a guilty conscience.

Heather –

I barely hear the votes. It's like I'm drowning under twelve feet of freezing water, stilling my body and numbing my brain. I hear them through a muffled tunnel, barely paying attention as I chain smoke my last few cigarettes. Among many others, an innocent girl is dead. And I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell Tara that she burned to death because of me, because of this club. What was I supposed to say? How could I have made that right?

She would never look at me the same again.

The gavel slams down and it snaps me back into reality.

"We hit them back, hard."

After church lets out, I saunter out of the doors and perch myself at the half ruined bar, continuing to smoke and stay lost in my head. I don't want to think, but it's all I can do, drowning in a sea of what ifs and buts and how the hell can I carry this weight and bear this cross at only sixteen? I hadn't been expecting to pledge in during a time of war, and though the fight is buried deep within me, there's something holding me back from diving over this cliff. I see Tara's face, hazel eyes welling with nickle sized tears as I held her wrist and kept her from walking away from me. And all I can think about is how everything that I am, everything that I _will_ be, will keep her walking away from me for the rest of my life.

It hurts. I don't want to lose her, when I barely have her to begin with.

"Ya alright, Jackie Boy?" Chibs sits next to me at the bar, slapping my back affably.

I nod a little, absentmindedly pushing the ash tray back and forth with my index finger. "Yeah. I'm alright."

"How's that noggin of yours?" He messes up my hair like a big brother would, lightheartedly pestering.

And then I put it together. It was Chibs who knocked me out of the way that night, shielding my body with his to protect me. It was Chibs who'd carried me out of the clubhouse. It was Chibs who saved my life.

I look over at him in realization. "You?"

He lights a cigarette and gives me a half shrug, taking a long drag before responding. "Someone has to keep the Teller legacy alive."

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude as I smile back at him, setting a hand on his shoulder affectionately. I tell myself that if I ever live past this shit, and I ever make it to the head of the table, Chibs will be on my right. My Sargent at Arms, the one who will always have my back and save my sorry ass when I get in too deep. I know it's a silly promise to make, bearing only the Prospect patch while my body buzzes with unrelenting anxiety at what this club will make of me, but I make it anyway. Because Chibs is my family. Because Chibs reminded me that I will never take this on alone, and that I gave it all up for this. This brotherhood.

"Thank you," I say.

"Anytime, kid." He tells me. And we chain smoke together.

When Opie and I are released for the night, Opie stays to catch a ride with his pop and I ride out into the night. I already know what I'm going to do before I even make the conscious decision to do it, kicking my bike down through Donna's street. It's not exactly the best plan – I know her folks are pretty straight laced, and when she comes anywhere with us, she does it discretely. But I go there anyway, and park my bike several houses away.

I'm doing it for her. I'm doing it for Tara.

I'm thankful that Donna answers the front door when I knock, and then guilty when I see her expression. She's absolutely terrified, lip trembling and eyes wide with fear.

She immediately questions me. "Is Op – Is he okay? What happened, Jax? Why are you here?"

And I understand then. She's not afraid of me being here, she's shell shocked from the shooting and thinks that something else has happened. And all I can think of is Tara's face when she put her hands over Opie's bullet hole, and how she looked in the emergency ward after. How can I let myself ruin her innocence along with my own? Donna is already in too deep for saving, but Tara?

I know it's illogical, but I can't give her up. I'm exhausted from forcing myself to do it, and I can't anymore.

"No, no, Donna. Op's alright, everything's fine," I tell her, settling a hand on her rigid shoulder. She relaxes a little at that, releasing a heavy breath with a small nod. "I came for a favor." I add.

"What do you need?"

I shift a bit uncomfortably, hating to admit the one weakness I have – especially in the midst of everything that I am. "Do you know where Tara lives?"

And Donna gives me that look – the same one that everyone gives me when I mention Tara. At first it's skepticism and disbelief, because someone like Tara doesn't belong within a lick of me. And then it's this pitiful hopelessness, directed towards me and my apparent pathetic interest in her. No one thinks we belong together, and no one sees us surfacing through the muck of our star-crossed lives as something, _anything_ other than so far away.

I don't care. I can't fucking care, because there's a sick feeling in my gut, festering every second I spend without at least knowing her. I can't shake her. I can't breathe or sleep or eat because I've wronged her by wanting her, wronged her by hiding what I did, wronged her by pressing my lips on her forehead when I should have let her go. And the longer I sit in the depths of this silence without her near me, the sicker I feel, like an illness that could be cured with her acceptance of me – even the monster that sleeps inside.

"Jax, Tara is a good girl," Donna starts, her voice small. I can tell she doesn't want to break it to me. "She's... smart and driven. She's not like –"

"She's not like me, I get it." I cut her off, a bit venomously. I'm not mad at Donna, I know her intentions are good just like they always are. But I'm sick of hearing it, sick of staying away from Tara, sick of feeling desperate. I am desperate now.

"Don't you think you should just leave her be, Jax? She's different. And..." Donna looks at me innocently, because she doesn't want me to snap at her again – I can tell. "You'll break her heart."

I don't say anything for a long beat, releasing a heavy sigh and itching to light a cigarette. I know I don't have the best track record with girls, and I've never claimed the white hat and called myself a saint with them. I've broken many hearts, and I've used more people than I care to admit, but it's not the same. _She_ is not the same.

I don't care to show my weakness now, it's seeping from my skin and the stronger I try to pretend to be, the more it brings me to my knees. "Please, Donna. Please just tell me where she lives."

"Okay."

_**Tara**_

I'm walking out of my house, making way to the Homecoming dance, as he's walking up my driveway.

Jax.

I can't breathe.

I stop in my tracks and attempt to regain myself, trying to force air in my lungs and my body to keep moving. But I'm a statue on the pavement, staring at him like a deer in headlights with my mouth slightly agape. He's here, he's at my house. And he looks like absolute Hell – his messy hair is even messier, his clothes are wrinkled like he'd slept in them a few nights, and there are dark circles under his eyes that can only come from restlessness. He looks at me with this tortured expression, eyebrows furrowed and lips set into a firm line.

I shrink under his gaze like I always do, folding my arms across my sequined chest. I feel like an idiot in my white Homecoming dress, hair curled, and spare bits of make-up splashed on my face because I never had my mother to show me how to do it. I'm so shocked by him standing there that I forget to be angry, and then when I remember, the rage nearly rocks me out of my heels.

"You look..." He begins, and I don't want to hear the rest.

I immediately say it before he can say anything else. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tara –" He steps towards me with his hand outstretched, and I flinch away from him.

"Don't touch me." I sneer at him, and I'm terrified at the pain I feel. It hurts me to hurt him, and I hate it. "_Why didn't you tell me_?!"

"I didn't know how to tell you!" He shouts back, and I flinch again. His voice... His pain... "I didn't want to hurt you. I knew you wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't _what_, Jax? Understand? Oh, I understand _perfectly_ well. I understand _your club_ killed an innocent girl, it's crystal clear! You put her in danger! She is _dead_ because of you!" I feel tears stinging my eyes, but I won't let them fall. I won't be weak in front of him.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, as if he's taken my blow below the belt and accepted it's force without reckoning. I know I'm irrational. I know I shouldn't place the death at his feet – he didn't start that fire or shoot those guns. But with the death of Heather, and the death of so many other innocents, his path became more real to me. A path I know I cannot follow without placing the entirety of myself, my future, and everything I have into his palms. Because his path is straight to Hell, the most wicked, dangerous game that I can't play, and how could I fall for him?

How could I have fallen for the one thing that might just kill me?

His voice gets low when he looks back to me again. "No, I knew you wouldn't look at me the same, Tara." He takes a breath and then continues, even smaller. "I'm sorry about Heather. I'm so sorry, but I can't change what happened."

I look away from him and I can't look back. I can't see him when I do what I need to do, because I'll be too weak and breathless to do it. "I can't see you anymore. I can't... I can't do this. I can't start this with you." I whisper, holding my torso because it feels like it's about to shatter into a million glass pieces.

"Don't."

It kills me. _He kills me_. "Please, just go. Please."

"Look at me Tara," I hear him close the distance between us, see his feet from my peripheral vision, but I still can't. "Tara, look at me!"

"I can't." I whisper again, shaking my head as my hands turn to balls and my nails dig into my skin. I can't stop the burst from my chest, releasing all the things I couldn't say. I stare at my feet, and let it out. I let myself say it, because this is the end. _I cannot be his_.

"I don't even know you, and it's like you _own_ me. _You own me_! I can't do what's right! I can't concentrate, I can't eat, I can barely breathe when I look at you and this isn't me, this isn't the kind of girl I am! You _terrify_ me. You own me, and I can't belong to you. You're going to hurt me. You're going to _kill_ me."

"I own you? _You_ own _me_!" Jax shouts back, and my eyes snap up to meet his again. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't expecting to see his expression contorted to so much unimaginable pain, or to hear him say that. _I own him_? "_I_ can't eat,_ I_ can't sleep, and _you are all that I can think about_! I kill myself wondering how much of you I'm allowed to have, how much you _want _me to have, and it's this relentless back and forth of never fucking knowing whether or not I should let myself feel this way about you! But I can't stop it! I _can't_, I've tried," His voice breaks, and I break with it. "_You_ are going to hurt _me_, _you _are going to kill _me_! You own me just as much, Tara, but unlike you, I _want _to know what this is! I have to know. There's something here, and I am done ignoring it."

I can't breathe.

He takes in my expression, searching, but I barely know what it is. I'm so taken aback that my body feels numb and my head is disconnected from me. It resonates through every single fiber of my being.

_We fell for each other. _

There's a long moment suspended between us. We don't say anything, we just breath in synchronization, staring at one another – ocean on earth. It's real now. It's as unavoidable as malignant cancer, sucking our health dry and leaving us unable to be inoculated. Because he owns me, and I own him, and we may just destroy each other and tear down our entire lives in the process.

Jax breaks the silence, voice raw and contorted. "I'm not going to stay away from you. I _can't_. So please, don't ask me to."

I don't say anything because I can't make my voice work. I know that what is about to happen between us will become wildly intense and world changing, toxic and unhealthy and codependent. I know that he will be dangerous and crooked with crime, and I will drown under the weights of his chosen life. I know that I could become the next Heather, dead at his feet before life even had a chance to be lived, and that no one in his life will trust me like they do their own.

There are so many reasons that I can't be with him, and yet they all feel meaningless now. Because it's true. We've already fallen. I don't have a choice, because I'm already his.

"Tara, say something. Say anything."

I suck in a deep breath, and let my arms drop from my own embrace. "Do you dance?"

Jax narrows his eyes at me, skeptical. "No, I don't dance."

"But for me, would you?" I try again.

He catches on then, his face finally smoothing out into relaxation and understanding. His lips even curl at the ends in a half smirk, so captivating and devious that I forget to breathe again. He's so beautiful. "Yes. For you, I would."

"Okay," I say, offering my hand to him. Jax looks at me longingly, and then at my hand, offering to pull us across that final threshold. He takes it in his and holds it to his chest, as if he can't get me close enough. A fire starts in my belly, and I know that I will never get used to touching him. "Will you be my Homecoming date?"

He lets out a small, helpless laugh as he nods. "Yes, Tara. I will."

We walk to the school together, and even though Jax is no longer a student at Charming High and he's wearing a wrinkled flannel, jeans, and his Prospect leather vest, and absolutely everyone in the building stares at us with aghast and angry eyes – including David Hale – it doesn't matter. He takes me to the middle of the dance floor, holds my hips in his hands, and draws me close.

I put my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, and all of my anxiety falls away. We're the only two people in the entire universe, and nothing matters but us. Nothing matters but the way we feel about each other.


End file.
